I’M KIND OF BUMMED about my carbon budget. During this eight-day tour of Europe I’ve practically left a contrail, thousands of pounds of CO2 cast merrily upon the wind: Five airplanes, five hotels, one TGV and many fast cars. That’s not even counting the towels.

And now I am striding upon the autobahn between Bavaria and Saxony in a twin-turbo
BMW
M6 Coupe, cruising in splendid isolation at 135 kmh, or so, with the occasional effortless reach to 275 kmh (170 mph).

Stretches of unrestricted autobahn are getting rare, and speed cameras maintain robotic discipline the rest of the way. I’ve only had a couple of occasions to floor it but then, wow, it’s one big gravity flush.

I’ve noticed the M6, with its proud array of LED headlamps and bird-of-prey visage, is so distinctive at a distance that German drivers almost reflexively yield the left lane to it. This thing moves through a crowd like an off-duty detective.

While the official paperwork indicates an electronically limited top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h) on the M6, my car’s speed limiter is disabled. Apparently that is part of the M Driver’s package. In any event, I approve. Germany is particularly blurry this time of year, don’t you think?

The package also includes the option of our mesmerizing 20-inch light-alloy wheels and indecently thin Michelins (295/30s on the rear). My test car has the carbon-ceramic brake package, so I’m sporting some significantly lowered unsprung mass. This thing tracks gorgeously. No big car is more blithely stable at sustained high speed.

The giant wind turbines along the route mock me, but the work has to go on. High-speed, internodal transit from one German city to another is the M6’s primary mission, its brief, its raison d’être. It’s MUC-to-LEJ at a cruising altitude of zero feet.

I want it known, before I fall all over myself in love with the M6, that there is yet a better way to accomplish this particular effect—electric. All of the remarkable qualities that this car brings to the table—its mastery of noise, vibration and powertrain isolation; its spine-tingling acceleration; its hyper-athletic modernity—could be delivered with less mechanical overhead with an electric powertrain.

The designers of the M6 struggled to achieve the quiet and accelerative linearity that are an EV’s birthrights. Energy storage? During a four-hour bash of the German countryside, I stopped for a loo and a coffee. I could have availed myself of any number of available superchargers along the corridor of that autobahn. I don’t think I could drive a Tesla Model S P85D hard enough to exhaust the batteries in that scenario.

Further, the Tesla represents only the beginning of this EV energy storage technology, whereas the M6 represents the end-times of internal combustion.

Actually, if I had the M6’s as-tested, all-in price of $171,590, and I needed a swank German GT, I think I might opt for the company’s i8, a carbon-fiber future coupe with swan-wing doors and gas-electric powertrain. She’s a cool one.

But there is an asterisk: The i8 and the Tesla aren’t geared for flights over 155 mph. If you want a car that fast that only feels electric, you want the M6.

To tee it up a bit: The M6 is BMW’s flagship coupe, five-meter class, with the all the dynamics and performance taps opened. It starts with the 6 series, a front-engine, rear-drive grand touring car, steel and aluminum construction, with 2+2 seating and a trunk of useful size.

The 6 comes in three body styles: the two-door closed coupe—what a gentleman orders; convertible; or the four-door Gran Coupe, built over a wheelbase 4.5-inches longer than that of the coupe/convertible (112.2 inches). I don’t much care for that.

The turbos modulate the engine’s respiration so well it doesn’t even need to throttle bodies anymore. By the time all that chat goes through the optional seven-speed dual-clutch M gearbox, lickety-split, and appears at the back wheels, you are really moving…as if in a beautiful, expensive dream.

Everything in the M6 is dialed up and cinched down: the adaptive damper control gets an extra edge in the Competition cars. In Dynamic mode, the steering is heavy and twitchy. The front double-wishbone suspension has special M specific elastokinematics, specifically a negative steering roll radius, helping to make the car a little more friendly at the limits. The five-link rear likewise gets special elastics and geometry. Whatever. It sticks.

This is, as the kids would say, totes amaze-balls, and it’s the endless gifting of torque combined with the virtually imperceptible and nearly instant gear changes that creates the kinetic echo of an electric car.

One doesn’t have to read between the lines very far to get that BMW, like all European luxury auto makers, is feeling the pressure to explain itself. The M6’s media release says the car’s fuel economy—28.5 mpg, average—in the first sentence, like a salesman getting his foot in the door.

Wait, what? Let’s stipulate that figure doesn’t represent real-world results (not the way I’m driving) but anything like an official 28.5 average mpg is a towering number for a 4,515-pound capable of 600 hp. BMW would no doubt point out the car’s intriguing fuel-saving strategies: stop-start; on-demand auxiliaries; brake energy regeneration; reduced-rolling resistance tires. Never has virtue been so cunningly cloaked in vice.

While exploring the last frontiers of IC-engine refinement, our M6 also touched the top of the option mountain too, including those carbon-ceramic stoppers with six-pot front calipers; adaptive LED headlamps with high-beam assist; a full suite of connectivity, from the vehicle’s ConnectedDrive to Internet hot spot; optional Bang & Olufsen surround-sound audio; and head-up display. The saddlery is impeccable, the instrumentation handsome to touch and rational, like hi-end audio equipment.

I still feel guilty. Electric would be better. But as long as pistons are a thing, well, that’ll do, Pig.